California Constitution

From Ballotpedia

California Constitution
Articles
I • II • III • IV • V • VI VII • VIII • IX • X XA • XB • XI • XII XIII • XIII A • XIII B XIII C • XIII D • XIV XV • XVI • XVIII XIX • XIX A • XIX B XX • XXI • XXII XXXIV • XXXV

The California Constitution is the document that establishes and describes the duties, powers, structure and function of the government of California. The state's first constitution was adopted in November 1849 in advance of California attaining U.S. statehood in 1850. That constitution was superseded by the current constitution, which was ratified on May 7, 1879.^[1]

California's constitution can be amended through statewide votes of the electorate on legislatively-referred constitutional amendments and initiated constitutional amendments. It can also be amended through a process beginning with a constitutional convention.

Preamble

The full preamble is 27 words: "We, the People of the State of California, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, in order to secure and perpetuate its blessings, do establish this Constitution."

Article I

Main article: Article I, California Constitution

Article I is labelled as the "Declaration of Rights". It contains 32 sections, numbered Sections 1-31 with an additional Section 14.1. The first section declares "All people are by nature free and independent and have inalienable rights. Among these are enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining safety, happiness, and privacy."^[2]

Article II

Main article: Article II, California Constitution

Article II is labelled, Voting, Initiative and Referendum, and Recall. It has twenty sections, many of which are short and even one-sentence declarations such as Section 7 which says "Voting shall be secret".

Sections 8, Section 10, Section 11 and Section 12 govern ballot initiatives, including defining the signature requirements for initiatives, the single-subject rule, a provision that says that initiatives must apply equally to all subdivisions (added in 1998), when initiatives that have been approved take effect, what to do in the case of conflicting initiatives and the California Attorney General's ballot title authorities.

Article III

Main article: Article III, California Constitution

Article III is labelled, State of California. It has nine sections that lay out some basic, definitional characteristics of how the government of California is organized. It includes provisions on how to sue the state of California. It has been amended over the years to include some very specific provisions such as Section 6, which defines English as the official language of California, and Section 8, which establishes a compensation commission.

Article IV

Main article: Article IV, California Constitution

Article IV is labelled "Legislative". It has 23 sections. There are no sections between Section 22 and Section 28; that is, there are no Sections 23, 24, 25 or 27.

Article IV lays out the powers, privileges and responsibilities of the California State Legislature, the California State Assembly and the California Senate.

Section 1.5 makes a strong statement in favor of term limits, saying, "The ability of legislators to serve unlimited number of terms, to establish their own retirement system, and to pay for staff and support services at state expense contribute heavily to the extremely high number of incumbents who are reelected. These unfair incumbent advantages discourage qualified candidates from seeking public office and create a class of career politicians, instead of the citizen representatives envisioned by the Founding Fathers. These career politicians become representatives of the bureaucracy, rather than of the people whom they are elected to represent." Section 2 defines the exact nature of those term limits.

Section 9 says that statutes passed by the legislature can concern themselves with only one subject.

Article V

Main article: Article V, California Constitution

Article V is labelled "Executive". It has 13 sections, which go from Section 1-Section 14, with no section 12.

Article V lays out the duties and authorities of the executive branch of California government, including those of the governor.

Amendments and revisions

Main article: History of Initiative and Referendum in California

In response to widespread public disgust with the powerful railroads which controlled California's politics and economy at the start of the 20th century, progressive politicians pioneered the concept of aggressively amending the state constitution by initiative in order to remedy perceived evils.^[3] From 1911, the height of the U.S. Progressive Era, to 1986, the California Constitution was amended over 500 times.^[4] The constitution gradually became increasingly bloated, leading to unsuccessful efforts towards a third constitutional convention in 1897, 1914, 1919, 1930, 1934, and 1947.^[5] By 1962 the constitution had grown to 75,000 words, which at that time was longer than any other state constitution but Louisiana.^[6] That year, the electorate approved the creation of a California Constitution Revision Commission, which worked on a comprehensive revision of the constitution from 1964 to 1976. The electorate ratified the Commission's revisions in 1966, 1970, 1972, and 1974, but rejected the 1968 revision, whose primary substantive effect would have been to make the state's superintendent of schools into an appointed rather than an elected official.^[7] In the end, the Commission managed to remove about 40,000 words from the constitution.^[8]

Compared to other constitutions

The California Constitution is one of the longest of the state constitutions. What accounts for its length? Factors that have been said to influence the size of the California Constitution include the public's lack of faith in elected officials and the availability of initiated amendments in California.^[9] Several amendments involved the authorization of the creation of state government agencies, including the State Compensation Insurance Fund and the State Bar of California; the purpose of such amendments was to insulate the agencies from being attacked as an unconstitutionally broad exercise of police power.

Unlike other state constitutions, the California Constitution strongly protects the corporate existence of cities and counties and grants them broad plenary home rule powers.^[10] By specifically enabling cities to pay counties to perform governmental functions for them, Section 8 of Article XI resulted in the rise of the contract city.^[11]

Several of the individual rights clauses in the state constitution have been interpreted as providing rights broader than the Bill of Rights in the federal constitution.^[12] Two examples are Robins v. Pruneyard Shopping Center and the 1972 case California v. Anderson, the first decision in America to find the death penalty unconstitutional. The U.S. Constitution's 8th Amendment prohibits punishments which are cruel and unusual, while the state constitution prohibits punishments which are cruel or unusual.

External links

Wikipedia has an article on:

California Constitution

• Search State Constitution searchable index
• California State Archives - 1849 State Constitution (text)
• The California State Constitution: A Reference Guide, Joseph R. Grodin, Calvin R. Massey, and Richard B. Cunningham, (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1993)
• The Constitution of the State of California, as annotated by Edward Treadwell in 1902

References

v • d • e California Constitution California Constitution • Article I • Article II • Article III • Article IV • Article V • Article VI • Article VII • Article VIII • Article IX • Article X • Article XA • Article XB • Article XI • Article XII • Article XIII • Article XIII A • Article XIII B • Article XIII C • Article XIII D • Article XIV • Article XV • Article XVI • Article XVIII • Article XIX • Article XIX A • Article XIX B • Article XX • Article XXI • Article XXII • Article XXXIV • Article XXXV

v • d • e State constitutions Alabama • Alaska • Arizona • Arkansas • California • Colorado • Connecticut • Delaware • Florida • Georgia • Hawaii • Idaho • Illinois • Indiana • Iowa • Kansas • Kentucky • Louisiana • Maine • Maryland • Massachusetts • Michigan • Minnesota • Mississippi • Missouri • Montana • Nebraska • Nevada • New Hampshire • New Jersey • New Mexico • New York • North Carolina • North Dakota • Ohio • Oklahoma • Oregon • Pennsylvania • Rhode Island • South Carolina • South Dakota • Tennessee • Texas • Utah • Vermont • Virginia • Washington • West Virginia • Wisconsin • Wyoming Constitutions of the American states • Amending state constitutions • Constitutional amendment